It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
White Male Heart

White Male Heart

Summary

In the magnificent wilderness that is the Scottish Highlands, Aaron and Hugh have been friends for as long as they can remember, bound by a shared affinity for their surroundings and an increasing sense of alienation from the remote, close-knit community that is their home.

But when a young woman - fleeing life in the city and a broken love affair - moves to the area, the ties that bind the boys are slowly, irrevocably stretched to near-breaking point. And as the strain on Aaron and Hugh's friendship builds, so the violence that is endemic in the land begins to infect them both. Driven to the very edge of reason, they turn on their world to vent their frustration and anger and hurt in the only way they know, embarking on a spree of quite horrific destruction...

Reviews

  • 'He has a novelist's eye for the beauty of the landscape and the shape of its contours. His descriptions...are elegiac in their intensity, and he has a sureness of touch which comes from a real understanding of the countryside...this is a novel of startling originality, an absorbing psychological thriller as well as a deft portrayal of friendship and betrayal. Nicoll writes fluently and well'
    Magnus linklater, The Times

About the author

Ruaridh Nicoll

Ruaridh Nicoll was born in Arbroath, Angus, in 1969 and raised in the Highland county of Sutherland. An award-winning journalist, he has been the Observer's US correspondent and the Guardian's Southern Africa correspondent. He's currently editor of the Observer Magazine. The acclaimed White Male Heart was his first novel and his second, Wide Eyed, is also set in rural Scotland. Ruaridh Nicoll dvides his time between London and Edinburgh.
Learn More

More from this Author

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more